Written by

Scott Gunnerson
| FLORIDA TODAY

Beddingfield, who lived in Titusville, joined NASA in 1959 at the urging of Gus Grissom, whom he'd flown with at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Grissom became one of the seven original Mercury astronauts, and he thought Beddingfield, an aeronautical engineer, should work in the space industry, too. As the story goes, Beddingfield said, "I don't know anything about space," recalled Charlie Mars, president of the U.S. Space Walk of Fame ...